Readers in the United States in the late 1990s might ask why they
should bother paying any attention to this book. After all, they might
note, the revolutionary wars in Central America that so preoccupied U.S. foreign policy during the 1980s have become a thing of the past.
1
They might read that the Salvadoran government, "thanks to American support, has now brought peace, without totalitarianism, to El
Salvador."
2 With the Cold War over, they might regard relations between the United States and Latin America as similar to "the relations
that prevail between the United States and Canada. Security matters
have been displaced from the top of the agenda by the search for positive outcomes and mutual gains in the economic sphere."
3 Moreover,
they might ask, are not changes in social customs and in technology
more important for the twenty-first century than wars, politics, and
ideologies?
4

It may be hard for some to give credence to the idea that understanding a small and poor nation like El Salvador can provide anything
vital for comprehending the rapidly changing contemporary world.
Yet a careful reading of El Salvador in the Eighties indicates that the
work of Mario Lungo Uclés carries substantial weight. To begin with,
Lungo is no ideological leftover from yesterday's Central American
politics. He is a serious social scientist who has long been fascinated
with the social complexities of El Salvador. A former director of the School of Architecture at the University of El Salvador, Lungo has established himself internationally as an expert on the issues of contemporary Latin American urbanization.
5 At the same time, he has be-

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